Curiosity didn't kill this cat

Updated 7:55 am, Monday, June 6, 2011

ALBANY -- Bob Suntheimer could hear the strained meows of the distressed kitten -- he just couldn't see him.

The 53-year-old West Hill man makes a daily routine of feeding the cats at 529 Second St., and became concerned Thursday when one of the three kittens of the stray dam who lives there was missing.

He finally found him stuck in the PVC drainpipe, and a few hours after city workers helped dig out the claustrophobic kitty Sunday afternoon, recounted his efforts to save him.

Suntheimer dropped food down the pipe, which extended down the wall of the burned-out and abandoned house, dove 4 feet into the earth before taking a right-angle turn under the wooden deck extending into its back yard.

"It did take me a while to figure out he was there -- there's lots of holes in that deck," he told the Times Union. "I kept trying to play with him with a rope, hoping he would grab it and come up."

It didn't work. Suntheimer called city officials but got a cold shoulder. He finally reached Gigi Giorgio, a Schenectady woman who volunteers with Kitten Angels Cat Rescue, who came to help. She tried a long pole attached to a glue trap, hoping the kitten would stick and stick well enough to be hoisted out. Alas.

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Eventually, police and public works officials arrived. Suntheimer said they were loath to help with the problem, even threatening to arrest him for trespassing.

That was frustrating: the block he's called home for 20 years alternates between well-kept, trimmed homes like Suntheimer's and abandoned properties like 529. Most of its windows are boarded, the grass is overgrown, and bottles can be found in a lawn that still sprouts trees so thick-limbed they beg for boys and girls to take a swing. Hip-hop blaring from the next block provided a throbbing soundtrack for the neighborhood Sunday evening, and light leaking from the ball fields at nearby Bleecker Stadium illuminated Suntheimer's pointing.

This is where he once found the rifle. Over there, the bag of clothes, near the abandoned bicycle. "I'm really not a cat person, but I care for them because I care for the neighborhood," he explains. "I'd like to see the house go and the deck stay."

After Giorgio arrived, city officials called in a backhoe and began digging. Albany Police Spokesman James Miller said crews worked from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

"It was quite an undertaking to get him out," Giorgio said. "There was a lot of digging, they ended up having to cut part of a deck away."

But finally, out of the ground, came a shaken but safe grey tiger kitten. Giorgio said she is caring for him in hopes he can be let out for adoption.

"We called him Drano," Suntheimer said. "His troubles went down the drain."